


Sowing the Seeds of Hope

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Biology, F/M, Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 14:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11602803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Kesh has a lot on her mind, but Vorn is a welcome distraction.





	Sowing the Seeds of Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GuileandGall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/gifts).



Everything was going to hell.

Kesh sighed and leaned back into the uncomfortable Initiative chair that groaned under her weight. Cursing that Tann had only outfitted the rooms with chairs built for _other_ species comfort, Kesh stubbornly shifted in her seat and tried – _desperately_ – to find one part of the seat that was remotely decent.

She shifted to the left, and pain radiated out of her midsection. She shifted to the right, and felt the chair wobble underneath her, its support no longer so firm. She sighed, stood, and started to read the latest agricultural figures standing up.

It was hard to believe that they’d left Tuchanka to find something _worse_ than Tuchanka, but according to the confidential report from the Horticulture lab, they had.

The problems were wide and, as always, numerous and challenging to fix. Vorn had poured his heart into listing everything that was wrong, down to the smallest detail, along with any and all possible ways of fixing it – including, endearingly and frustratingly, no less than sixteen different suggestions for how to screw in the light bulbs used in the heat-lamps. She liked Vorn; he was a scientist and a thinker, but his inability to prioritize had made any plan of getting the hydroponics department up a nightmare.

She opened a datapad and began to create a list, reorganizing it as she went. First: they had seedlings, but not enough of the Hydroponics station could stay lit without black-outs for the seeds to grow. This was going to inevitably delay their harvest, which meant that it would inevitably result in people not eating.

So – Problem 1. Get the lights on in Hydroponics, and have them stay on. Kesh sighed. That would mean other departments would need to have them off – and judging how Tann bitched at her for cutting _ten minutes_ of power from the Pathfinder’s museum in his god-forsaken office, the Pathfinder Museum where there was _no pathfinder to celebrate –_ that wasn’t going to be easy.

Still. She’d find a way. And maybe imagine Grandpa threatening to bite Tann’s head-off while he moaned and complained about the “sacrifices” he was expected to make.

There was a knocking at her door and she sighed again. No doubt someone else needed something, and somehow it was her job to get it to them. “Come in,” she said, with zero enthusiasm.

The person on the other side burst through the door, not noticing or not caring about her troubles. She looked up; Vorn. He looked distressed or excited. Great.

“What is it, Vorn?”

“Kesh!” He said, throwing open his arms wide. He wasn’t like most of the Krogan men on the station, always a bunch of hotheads scrambling for a fight. “Kesh! Come quick! You have to see this!”

He took several big steps toward her desk and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door.

“Vorn!” She said, sharply; a bit _too_ sharply, perhaps, because he stopped at the door itself, turning back and looking at her.

“What?” He looked at her, almost angelically clueless. “C’mon Kesh, we’re gonna miss it!”

“Miss what?” She could make a list of all the things she had to do, and there were a lot. But Vorn flashed her his Varren-eyes, bright and suitably adorable, and she put the datapad back in her pocket. “Never mind. If you want me to see it, I’ll see it. Lead the way.”

Vorn grinned at her like a Varren given a particularly large piece of thresher maw, and Vorn ran out the door. She had to run to keep up with them; thankfully, whenever someone on the station saw two krogan running together, they mostly stayed the _hell_ out of their way. She weaved her way with him into a transportation station, their two bodies just barely fitting in the trolley – it had been meant for _smaller_ residents. Yet another way the Krogan were being made to feel unwelcome; she made a note to try to figure out how to fix it, but it would, unfortunately, have to be way, way, _way_ down her priority list.

He looked at her with a pure smile, and Kesh felt something inside of her churn in a not-unpleasant way. Vorn really was a good guy; nice, too. He certainly wouldn’t be the worst person to lay a clutch with, but there was no time for that, not now, not with everything going wrong – and the lights blinked off and on for a moment, as if to remind her of this.

Thankfully, it lasted only a moment, which was good because judging by the way Vorn was squirming, whatever he was dragging her to see was time sensitive. He tore out of the trolley like Tann was on their heels, and she followed, resisting the urge to laugh as Vorn tore up the stairs.

“Hurry!” He said, waving toward her, and she obliged, racing after him.

They ran up the stairs, and Vorn turned toward her, proud, as they reached the hydroponics lab. “We made it!”

Before she could ask what they had made it for, Vorn picked up a plant in a small pot and shoved it toward her. “Look!”

She looked down in surprise; the plant was not a variety she was familiar with; some sort of asari flower judging by the light eezo-blue glow.

“It’s going to bloom,” Vorn said softly. “Any second.”

She looked up at him. “I thought we didn’t have any seedlings that far along.”

“Just one,” he said, his breath enraptured by the small, growing thing in his fingers. “This one. Hardy little thing.”

They both watched in silence as a plant’s flower burst forth; eezo-bright glow dripped off of every petal.

“T’sarina.” Vorn said, grinning. “Eezo-bright staple grown on Thessia and other eezo-heavy planets. Dried spice favored by most asari like pyjack sauce with us.”

He looked down for a moment, sucking in a breath, then looked up at her. "And-it-reminds-me-of-you.”

“What?”

“It’s pretty. And it survives even in the harshest environments. Thrives.” He looked down at the plant between his fingers, one of his three finders thoughtfully stroking a flower. “It’s strong, useful – and beautiful. So I wanted you to see it.”

“Vorn...” She took a step closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.” She wrapped one hand around his hands, supporting the flower pot with him. “Do you want to go down to the Vortex after you get off today? Maybe we could...talk.”

“Yes!” Vorn all but shouted. “Would like that a lot.”

“I gotta get back to work,” she said, and held back a wince, thinking of what was left in her office. “But I’ll look forward to it.”

Maybe coming to Andromeda wasn’t all bad, after all.


End file.
